


watching stars collide

by orphan_account



Category: VIXX
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:37:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4334138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they fell in love in college, and meet seven years later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watching stars collide

**Author's Note:**

> written as part of a theme challenge i did for leobin. if you're interested in the other fills, check [my journal](http://himuup.livejournal.com/)!

It was a bar like any bar one would find in a rural city: dim lights darker still than the night outside, and from the jukebox: Joy Division. A soft melody from unseen speakers; Ian Curtis and his broken heart, broken voice, a tone that set a mood too dark for Taekwoon's liking, so he tried to ignore it, but it was hard.  
  
Hongbin was sat across the table, on his own side of the booth; they'd agreed not to be cozy, not in public where somewhere might see them, and he was on his fourth beer, already swaying where he sat. It was likely he hadn't ate, he never did when he was nervous; only drank until his legs gave out beneath him, but Taekwoon didn't want that. So he reached over the table and took the glass, half empty, from Hongbin's slightly trembling hand, and kept it on his side of the booth.  
  
Hongbin still held his hand as if there was something in it, and after a slow blink and a quiet laugh, let it fall. 'Sorry,' he shook his head as if shaking away a nasty thought. And after a while, he said, 'I feel funny.'  
  
'Bad funny?' Taekwoon asked.  
  
'No. Just funny.' He looked at his hands, then looked at the bartender, made a move as if to ask for another drink but seemed to think better of it. And eyes back on his hands, fingers curled into loose fists, he said, 'I took my ring off before I came here. Should I have done that?'  
  
Taekwoon, who didn't have a ring to take off, only shrugged. 'I don't think it really matters.' Then, softly, 'You've always done what you wanted to, anyway.'  
  
Hongbin brought his knees to his chest, arms wrapped around them like a child making themselves small; and he made a face that wasn't quite a smile, a noise that wasn't really a laugh. 'I think—' he cleared his throat— 'that's why we didn't work out, huh? You're so passive, hyung.'  
  
Taekwoon scoffed, tried to smile but there was a pressure in his throat like emotion gone wrong, and he muttered instead: 'I don't wanna talk about that.'  
  
'Right,' sitting up too fast, Hongbin knocked his knees on the table. 'I don't know why I even— I'm sorry.' He reached for the drink but stopped himself short; looked up at Taekwoon as if asking permission, but dropped his eyes as soon as Taekwoon looked back.  
  
'You don't have to be here, Bin-ah. It's okay if you just go home.'  
  
'No, I— I want to be here with you. I just, I hadn't thought it'd be like this? I mean,' here: a smile so genuine Taekwoon's heart felt a little better. 'You look great, hyung.'  
  
It was hard not to be flattered; face warm and glowing with his pulse rising. It was what he had wanted to hear; was the reason why he wore his best shirt, the one with the pinstripes that made his shoulders look broader than they actually were. He touched his shirt now, smoothed imaginary wrinkles from the sleeves, and dropped his chin to his chest. It was his way of hiding the color that flooded his face, but Hongbin knew too well. He was biting his lip the way he always did whenever he caught Taekwoon blushing.  
  
'I won't dress so nicely next time,' Taekwoon said without thinking. One look at Hongbin and he realized what he'd said.  
  
'Next time?' An echo, not a question; Hongbin turned away as soon as the words left his mouth, turned to look out the glass-plate door and the dimly lit street beyond it. He rubbed at his neck, at his face; tried to calm himself with a sigh that was too heavy to be casual, and said, 'I need a smoke,' with a hand already on the table, palm up, like he expected the cigarettes to magically appear. And in a way: they did. Taekwoon took the pack from his pocket and placed it in Hongbin's hand; and it was so like all the years before, back in college, when Hongbin would pat Taekwoon's jeans to find his cigarettes, his lighter, his car keys; and take them without asking, because he'd always done what he wanted without caring for the consequences. Only with Taekwoon, there had never been consequences.  
  
He stumbled from the booth to the door, dragging a hand over the wall to steady himself; and he stood just outside the window with his back to the glass and his shoulders hunched over. Taekwoon waited a moment, watched as smoke dispersed in a cloud-like form, lingering for only a second before winter winds blew it away; and only then, as Hongbin crouched down on his haunches with his head between his shoulders, did Taekwoon drain the remaining lukewarm beer from Hongbin's glass, and pay the tab at the bar-top.  
  
Then: outside in the cold without a jacket because he'd given it to Hongbin, Taekwoon took the half cigarette Hongbin offered, asked, 'Did you wanna go back to the hotel?'  
  
Hongbin nodded gently like he was too embarrassed to say it out loud.  
  
They took a cab and sat on either side of the backseat; stuffy air so thick it was hard to breathe in. Taekwoon rest his forehead to the cold window, watched as his breath formed a smudge on the glass, and thought about wiping it away but in the end, left it there. It was when they were turning off the highway and onto a back road that was terribly dark—the cabbie had to turn on the brights—that cold, trembling fingers touched the side of his neck, followed by the weight of Hongbin's head against his shoulder. Taekwoon smiled, though it was small, and took Hongbin's hand into his own. He thought of kissing him, thought of taking his face between his hands and leaning his body against him, but they were in a cab, and it was bad enough they were on their way to a hotel. Better to kiss him properly when there wasn't a strange man looking through the rear-view. So: he waited. Even though the pull in his chest only grew worse, and the fluttering in his stomach was bad enough to hurt; he waited.  
  
Up the lift onto the sixth floor to a room that was worth more than Taekwoon was paid in a week because Hongbin was worth more than a seedy motel room where the cable was weak and the bed-springs rusted with age (not that Hongbin was worth only a hotel room at all). The air was so thick with emptiness and the windows wide like eyes looking in on an empty head, and Taekwoon: feeling empty himself; so full of nothing he didn't even know where to stand. So he stood by the bed with his hands in his pockets and his shoes kicked off by the front door, and Hongbin sat on the side of the mattress, sat on his hands like he was afraid they'd run away, and asked, 'How long are you staying? One night?'  
  
'Yeah.'  
  
'Why not two?'  
  
'I have a plane to catch tomorrow.'  
  
'Morning?'  
  
Taekwoon shook his head. 'Evening.'  
  
'We'll have breakfast then. Before I go back.' Hongbin pushed the hair out of his eyes, one ankle crossed over the other. He had turned on the radio and it was playing something sad, something awfully old, and Taekwoon hated it from the start, but he wouldn't tell Hongbin that.  
  
'Hyung, come here.'  
  
So he came, and he sat, and he ignored the swarm of butterflies that rose in his stomach as Hongbin laid a hand on his thigh. Ephemeral silence broken by a soft noise Hongbin made, something like a whine but deeper; and he leaned into Taekwoon's body, head tipped back and his face pressed to Taekwoon's neck. He said, 'I still feel bad for what I did.'  
  
It was the last thing Taekwoon wanted to hear, to think about, so he shoved, very gently, at Hongbin's shoulder until their bodies were forced apart, and looking him in the eye—a feat proven difficult after only a second—Taekwoon told him, 'It's been too long to still feel bad about it,' but it was a lie. It'd been seven years, and Taekwoon's heart still ached for a future he never had with a boy who stopped loving him too soon.  
  
Hongbin smiled, a forced curve of his mouth that told Taekwoon he didn't believe him, not for a second, but he'd play along. He nodded, and touched Taekwoon's jaw; he leaned in, and kissed his mouth, and it was like swallowing fire, to feel Hongbin's mouth against his own: heat in his throat, in his chest, burning him from the inside out and how badly he wished for this one single moment to stretch on for the rest of his life.  
  
He laid Hongbin on the bed and crawled between his legs, and it was like a dance they'd done a hundred times before, like nothing had changed no matter the years and people and lives put between them; and when he felt Hongbin's skin, warmer now than he'd ever remembered it to be, against his own bare chest, he felt the first pangs of regret. Because it'd been his idea to pass through Seoul before he left for Hong Kong; an idea that seemed perfect and wonderful and everything he'd wished for for the last decade of his life, but having it unfold in front of him, hearing the same sounds Hongbin had made all those times before behind locked doors in dorms with dim sunlight beating through uncurtained windows, was too much to bear. But he did it, because it was the last time he'd ever have a chance to, because  _next time_ would never come, no matter how badly they wanted it to.  
  
And as they lay in heap after it all, with their clothes discarded somewhere on the floor and the blankets mussed, sweat still lingering on bare skin, Taekwoon thought—and not for the first time—of asking Hongbin to come with him. It wasn't fear of rejection that stopped him from asking, but the knowledge that Hongbin would tell him yes.  
  
'I wish you could stay longer,' Hongbin said as he crawled out of bed. He grabbed the first piece of clothing he could find: Taekwoon's button-up that hung off him like a sheet. He wrapped it around himself, arms through the sleeves and the sleeves rolled up, wrinkled and messy: all that Hongbin was. 'At least another night, you know? I don't want to, uh,' he blushed. 'I don't like saying bye to you.'  
  
'We can keep in touch,' Taekwoon said softly, 'if that's what you want.' But he didn't have to look at Hongbin to know his answer. To keep in touch would give them excuses never to let go. At least in silence, they could pretend to.  
  
Hongbin, staring at the floor, bare feet shuffling against cheap carpet. 'I—'  
  
'You don't have to say it.'  
  
Here: a deep breath that shook with the force of it, he reached behind himself and laid his hand on Taekwoon's arm. 'I should have never left you.'  
  
Taekwoon closed his eyes as his heart crawled into his throat, and choked him.


End file.
